There are rural roads that are almost impossible not to repeat. This is something that happens frequently in the far western edge of La Rioja. Especially when you discover those villages that pop up out of nowhere along the road, drawing perfect lines between the horizon and the centuries-old vineyards that have propelled this region to the Olympus of wine culture.
On this occasion the road stopped abruptly in Sajazarra, one of those medieval towns that lives with its back to the modern world. And this isn’t due to a lack of knowledge or drive or possibilities. Sajazarra doesn’t want the grand tourism to know its unhurried pace, nor all the details of that history that has adorned it with a certain halo of mystery. Not by chance it belongs to the club of The Most Beautiful Villages in Spain, and in this expedition we uncover the reason.
A castle-winery
Sajazarra is a town that can be explored in a day, and it also features a well-equipped caravan park on the outskirts for those who embrace rural nomadism. The traveler is welcomed by its most emblematic building: the castle. Around it, part of the surrounding fortified enclosure that the town once possessed still stands. Sajazarra was a genuine temptation for anyone who had the means to possess it. So coveted was it that the Crown of Castile and the Kingdom of Pamplona turned to force for years in order to take control of the villa.
Everyone wanted to lay hands on these lands, and for that reason the town began to fortify itself. While the walls visible at the start of the route date back to the 13th century, the construction of the castle would not be completed until two centuries later. We must go back, then, to the 15th century, exhausting the last years of the Middle Ages, when this fortress took shape, with its rectangular footprint and its towers at the corners.
